


(northwest)

by KyberHearts



Category: American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Genre: Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-17 16:38:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13663014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KyberHearts/pseuds/KyberHearts
Summary: An almost-forgotten god reflects on his experiences in the Americas





	(northwest)

**Author's Note:**

> i've been,,, suffering that good good writer's block

Long before our paths crossed, I had found myself looking over the ocean on the West Coast.

The water was cold. The waves was frothy, as they should be, but it was overall calmer than most horizons I'd ever met in my life. Nothing like the oceans I grew up with. Those would leap right out of the depths and drag you into the riptides before you'd have a chance to open your mouth and scream for help. Gods of the ocean were something to be feared. They were finicky and unpleasant because the sight of the ocean calms you like the smell of vanilla or buttercream. The realization comes too late, so that's why we teach the children how to appease the tide before they learn how to swim.

I eventually left the sea and headed inland. It had its mountains, and pines, and hilltops, and the kind of fog that likes to cling to your shirt. The only light comes from the headlights spotting the winding highways; there are no fireflies on the western half of the Americas, and there is no moon or North Star to hang in the sky and light the way. It was late summer. People in these areas are often soft-spoken. All too aware of the time that passes by. Made me think of villages with their alderman, tossed far and few between the rural areas as if the pioneers had thrown darts on a map with no markers, no landscapes, and no fucking scale to appreciate that it would take a month to reach the closest pharmacist, three weeks shy of surviving the pox.

Hmm? So many people to pick and choose, and I just happened on you?

No. Nothing's a coincidence; the world simply doesn't work like that. You can say that the universe and its laws are bound to overlap and intersect, and show me all the proof and proofs about probability, and at the end of the day I would refuse to believe in coincidence. Call me obstinate; call me stubborn and bull-headed until you can't.

Besides, they just weren't the right companions. I didn't need people who believed; I needed someone who I could rely on.

But the music, Shadow, I must recommend. The music was quite the experience. There were the songs that would play on the radio, haunting and ghastly and sometimes the only noise for miles and miles around. And then you had the melodies that spill from mouths crowded around a fire; they sang the song of vagrants and hitchhikers, with parched lips and throats. They were meant for someone, something, or the sake of replacing silence. It was like a pulse; slow and steady and reliable, even when it was played hard and fast on the fiddle or the cello.

They call it _folk music_ , because they say it comes from nowhere and everywhere. Truly, it's based in the tradition of passing stories orally. It's _folk music_ because not only does the song depend on its listeners to ensure its survival, the people have the responsibility. The devil might've lost his soul in Georgia, but he lived in the stories of the Northwest.


End file.
